Posted September 26, 2023 by mrdiv
The new demo for ENDLESS BLUE has been out for a week now, so I thought I'd take a minute to write up a mini post-mortem looking at how the release went.
But first:
Perhaps you've already noticed in-game, but I'm happy to officially unveil the new portrait art of ENDLESS BLUE's protagonist REINA. Illustrated by the very talented @Ruedefaux!
The good:
In general, the response to the new demo has been very positive with some nice coverage from these outlets:
Alpha Beta Gamer: https://www.alphabetagamer.com/endless-blue-beta-demo/
80 LEVEL: https://80.lv/articles/a-new-resident-evil-mgs-inspired-horror-game-is-now-available/
Before the release, I sent out early access builds to a handful of streamers who focus mainly on indie horror and/or survival horror games in particular. This ended up being fairly invaluable because frankly, I know very few people IRL who are really familiar with the classic survival-horror games ENDLESS BLUE is based on. So while there were definitely some issues that cropped up during these streams, it was also reassuring to see fans of the genre were 'getting' what I was going for.
The most noticeable bug that I identified from these streams was that the mannequin monsters in the 'Disc 2' area just weren't appearing for some players, something I couldn't recreate on my own machine. I finally realized that the monsters were spawned into an area that didn't have any collision, so they were simply falling into the abyss from frame one. In my own playthroughs, I reached the event that teleports them into place quicker than they had time to fall to the point where the engine simply deleted them. A silly oversight on my part, but a good reminder of why playtesting is so important!
The less good:
Generally, I feel like the game isn't too buggy, but please let me know if you run into any issues. I know currently, it is possible, but pretty rare, to get frozen into a UI examination dialogue. I believe this is caused by leaving the collision box for an examinable object the same frame that the UI element is added, as the game is then paused but the player's input is no longer registered when outside of the box. While I fixed this in some places, I need to go through with a fine tooth comb and fix every instance it can happen.
On another note, I think releasing the demo the same week as the new Resident Evil 4 DLC probably didn't do me any favors, as that DLC sucked up the attention of the survival horror gaming world. Of course, I think this is a symptom of a larger issue of there being just too many games being announced or released recently. So, I do have to give a big thanks to anyone who did take the time to play my demo or help signal boost on twitter or elsewhere.
A friendly reminder that word of mouth is hugely important to the success of any game these days - indie or not - and I can assure you is much appreciated by the developers!
What's next?:
I've begun the process of getting the demo on to that other games platform. Looks like it will be a few weeks before I am able to, but hopefully that will increase the reach of the game. In the meantime, I will be working on bug fixes and other small improvements to the game, so feel to let me know in the comments if you have any specific feedback.
Besides that... well, it is possible I have another big secret thing planned for October....
But that's all I'll say for now :)
Thanks for reading, and thanks again for playing ENDLESS BLUE!
Bonus: the first ever fan art for ENDLESS BLUE by @AquaBotArt1